Hubble ... Pointing At Nothing

Here is what happened, when astronomers pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at what appeared to be absolutely nothing, and left it there for 10 days, and then again for 11 days. Then they made the images into a 3-D presentation.
Turn your sound on; there is a narrative.


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I love it!!! We're alone . Yeah right:)

Gives new meaning to the phrase "hole lot of nothing"

Nice video even if a bit misleading. But who cares, I love images that show vast numbers of galaxies.

Should note that even "empty" space is not empty (a very Newtonian idea). In fact, "empty space" is full of sub-atomic particles that come and go. Look up Casimir Effect, a very cool quantum physics experiment.

Thanks for this link. How beautiful.

This stuff boggles my tiny little brain and I love it.

I watched the bit on galaxies traveling faster than light too.

I always wonder what is there now, since what we are seeing happened millions/billions of years ago.

If this stuff fascinates you, watch "Thorough the Wormhole" on the science channel.

Thanks again, GB

GBI

The video is awesome! Thanks for posting it.


Frog - I can't get my brain around this.....

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I always wonder what is there now, since what we are seeing happened millions/billions of years ago

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Liz

Frog, can you elaborate on the faster than light comment? One of the fundamentals of relativistic physics is that nothing can be observed moving faster than the speed of light. Curious what observations they have of this happening, the proof, analysis of whatever they may have found, etc..

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Originally Posted by GB1

Frog, can you elaborate on the faster than light comment? One of the fundamentals of relativistic physics is that nothing can be observed moving faster than the speed of light. Curious what observations they have of this happening, the proof, analysis of whatever they may have found, etc..

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That's what I thought or have been told anyway.
When you watch the video, a bubble comes up in top left that says, "how can anything move faster than light?" I clicked on it and it explained, though I understood none of it.

A wonderful video Greg, Thanks so much for sharing it !

Nothing we know about can travel faster than the speed of light. Certainly, galaxies can not. Nothing with mass can even travel as fast as light. However, optical effects can appear do so.

For example, image a galactic-sized pair of scissors in space. As you close the wide-open scissors, the actual physical blades are moving at less than the speed of light but the imaginary point where they cross can appear to be going faster than light.

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Originally Posted by mwfanelli2

Nothing we know about can travel faster than the speed of light. Certainly, galaxies can not. Nothing with mass can even travel as fast as light. However, optical effects can appear do so.

For example, image a galactic-sized pair of scissors in space. As you close the wide-open scissors, the actual physical blades are moving at less than the speed of light but the imaginary point where they cross can appear to be going faster than light.

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Yes - I recall reading an astronomical blurb regarding something like this years ago.. the initial FTL observation created a bit of excitement, but the later analysis concluded it wasn't so :nonod: